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O R A. T I o ]sr 



ON THE 



REAL NATURE AND YALUE 



OF THE 



AMERICAN REVOLUTION: 

DELIVERED IN CINCINNATL 



BEFOEE 



Citizens of all Races, Seels and Parties, 



ox THE 



FOURTH OF JULY, A. D. 1855, 



BY CHARLES ANDERSON. 



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PUBLISHED BY THE COMMITTEE OF ARRANGE^EJtTS. , u.q\ 



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niNCINNATI: 

C. F. BRADLEY & CO., PKINTERS, 147 MAIN STREET. 
1855. 



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I ?^5 



ADDRESS. 



Fellow Countrymen: — 

As we meet to celebrate a most famous event, I propose 
to you now, after the lapse of almost eighty years, that we shall 
all calmly consider what has been, to ourselves and to mankind, 
its real value. And this (contrarj^ to usage on these occasions) 
I propose to do, by a simple and practical comparison of what 
the Colonics were or would now have been, if that event had not 
occurred, and what the United States have become in consequence 
of it. The customary course of Addresses on this day has 
been a historical review of the contest itself, mingled with philo^ 
sophical reflections upon the natural and social rights of man, 
and glowing eulogies of our Revolutionary Fathers, and, some- 
times, of ourselves. I leave this beaten track, not because it 
is beaten ; for its universality only bespeaks, (what is the truth) 
that such a treatment of the subject is both natural and proper. 
Nor, ought it ever to become wearisome to the ears of Americans* 
Such meditations, like the prayers of infancy, like the songs of 
home, never can grow stale. However brief, and simple, and 
rude in form they may be, they are full to bursting, with deep 
thought and ardent emotions. 

My reasons for pursuing this humble walk, instead of essay- 
ing these serial flights, were, first — that the suddenness of the 
notice prevented more serious preparations, but chiefly, because 
I do earnestly believe, that a more every-day sort of an exami- 
nation of the incontrovertible facts of this comparison, has 
been too long neglected. 

What, then, my fellow countrymen, have been, tuliat are, and 
tvhat shall he the result, to Americans and to Mankind^ of 
1 



[2] 

the American Revolution ? Let us proceed to examine as 
much of these momentous questions, as our time will permit, in 
the most plain and practical way, without any of the bias of 
that enthusiasm, natural to the occasion ; hut with that stern 
and most brave impartiality of mind and feeling which become 
a consideration of simple facts, when submitted to the simple 
judgment. For I am not one of that class of patriots or phi- 
losophers, who believe that any rights, or principles, or results are 
too precious in their value, or too sacred in their origin, for us 
to attempt an appraisement and practical contemplation of them. 
JSfor, as you shall observe, am I, as an Anierican, upon its Nation- 
al Anniversary, at all afraid of this method of estimating those 
of our Nation. 

Upon the 4th of July, 177G, the American Colonics of Great 
Britain, of which I have spoken, numbered thirteen. The l/jii- 
ted States (themselves the first immediate and most grand re- 
sult of the Revolution,) have become thirty-one in number. To 
us this increase has become so familiar, like a great many won- 
derful things in the same condition, as to excite no surprise, not 
even to be suggestive of reflection. This mere fact, however, 
would well bear grave deliberation, and lead to far future and 
most valuable conclusions. 

Then ; the surface of territory owned by the Colonies inclu- 
ding Maine and Vermont, but not the Western lands, (for the 
charters were too vague for reliance, and England had no title 
from the Indians,) contained about 389,041 square miles. Now; 
our possessions in land, obtained by purchase and conquest, 
amount to 3,200,073 square miles. 

In other words, we have acquired nine times as much tenitory 
as the Colonies at that time contained, and its area exceeds all 
Europe by 407,073 square miles. What may be the ultimate 
effects upon our moral and political condition, of this amazing in- 
crease of our territorial surface, it might be difficult to conjecture. 
But as a pby.-ical result, and according to the opinions prevalent in 
the world, no one will deny them to be most novel and stupendous. 



[3] 

Then ; the population of the Colonies (which had been mainly 
seduced hither by the special privileges and bounties of royal 
charters, or driven here by religious persecution and tyranny,) 
was about 3,000,000. Now; we have a population of more than 
24,000,000; or we have multiplied our population more than eight 
fold- And, so far as the immigrant portion of the latter body is 
concerned, they were attracted hither only by their free cloice of 
our country and its institutions. Of this entire population, it is 
variously estimated that, from eight up to fifteen milUons, are 
either foreign born or the children of foreign born parents. So 
that without this source of population, and if we had depended 
only upon our Revolutionary stock and its natural increase, our 
present population would have been now from sixteen down to 
nine millions. 

What would have been, in that case, the physical consequen- 
ces, — in the settlement of our states, towns and cities, and upon 
our public works — in the productions from our forests, fields, 
and factories — in our intermediate history and present rank as 
a military and naval power, — it were a vain effort for me here 
to investigate. Doubtless, any approximation to the truth of 
these differences would amaze you all, the more profound think- 
ers amongst you far the most. 

Whatever may be the just and reasonable limit of that popu- 
lation, which can be protected and blessed by a single govern- 
ment of this form — whether considered abstractly or relatively to 
our extent of lands, our almost isolation from the civihzed world, 
(across oceans and on another continent,) our lot in this particular 
era of the world's history in civihzation, etc. — I shall not here and 
now discuss. I presume few will conclude, that we have, by any 
means, as yet filled our complement of numbers, either for pur- 
poses of peace or war. In war, our numbers must bear some pro- 
portion to the class of nations, with which we shall most proba- 
bly contend in arms. And to a nation, as grasping and bellige- 
rant as ours, (especially in its native population,) and with such 



, [4] 

European nations as we have heretofore battled, and may here- 
after contend Avith, no wise statesman will deny, that numbers is 
strength ! More than this — in the arts of peace^ (for peace hath 
her victories as well as war,) a nation cannot possess that variety 
of productions and pursuits, which is essential to the true de- 
velopment of civilization, as well as to the highest and widest 
prosperity and happiness of her individual citizens, without a 
large population. This is an abstract truth. But when we 
come to consider one particular condition of things, affecting us 
peculiarly, viz. : that the public wild lands, belonging to the 
General Government, covered an area of 1,584,000,000 acres, 
and that about one-fourth only of this has been sold, we dis- 
cover an influence greatly disturbing and modifying any abstract 
theory of republican or federative governments. If, for exam- 
ple, we set off against those portions of them, which have been 
sold and settled, the immensely greater bodies of private lands 
in all our States, which are still wholly out of use or enjoyment, 
we shall still find left, to be populated and civilized, an area 
equal to this inconceivably vast domain ! Now, what countless 
millions of human beings, with all their highest intelligence 
arid by all their most active arts and energies, are there not 
indispensable, to gather the neighborhoods; to form the socie- 
ties ; to organize the territories ; to found the states ; and to 
build and establish all the farms, villages, towns, and cities, 
with all their roads, turnpikes, bridges, canals, railroads, schools, 
colleges, churches, and all the other innumerable mental, moral, 
social, and legal incidents of civilized life ? Surely, no man can 
believe that our nation is within centuries of a repletion. Why, 
this body of land is, if my figures do not deceive me, 2,475,000 
square miles. It is larger than the empire of Russia in Europe ; 
and more than tAvice as large as France, England, Ireland, 
Scotland, Austria and Prussia — all put together! I suppose 
that five centuries of such immigration as we have had in our 
greatest years in that trade, would not sufficiently populate it for 



[5] 

the general welfare. To exemplify this last remark — provided 
the world could supply the hives or fountains, for human beings 
so to swarm or inundate — I believe that if the State of Ohio 
contained five times its present numbers, of the same sort as the 
present population, we should all be the more prosperous and 
happy for the increase. 

Upon the other aspects of this subject — its moral and social 
views — I shall say but little ; because I do not wish to give 
unnecessary offence, to any persons whomsoever, on this 
day. I will only remark, that, if it is a right of civilization 
to occupy wild surplus lands, the Europeans of the present age 
have just as much right to possess themselves of our surplus 
domain, as our European fathers, of an earher date, had to set- 
tie upon those of the Indians. And if the pubHc policy of the 
Government ever needed an immigrant population to settle and 
civihze its wildernesses, it has more want of it now, because we 
have more public domain, (even in proportion to our population,) 
than we had at the adoption of the Federal Constitution. I am, 
therefore, as I always have been, de-eidedly in favor of their com- 
ing, and when they shall have come, of our treating them with a 
hearty welcome, as men and Christians. I consider the harm 
they have done to my party — angry as they have often made me 
when I was a partizan — as far below their benefit to the whole 
country. And, in addition to all this, it is unwise to attempt to 
do a vain thing. In a repubHcan government, we could neither 
prevent their coming, nor abridge the privileges of those who 
shall come. The former would be unconstitutional, or, at least, 
against the spirit of a republican government; the latter is 
acting against all the probabilities of the real state of parties 
and opinions^ even among the native Americans, and if there 
were no other voices to be considered. 

Of the rehgious aspect of the subject of immigration, I shall 
say as little. First, because I know myself unfit, properly, to 
treat that general question. NexU because I am here ift a 



[C] 

representative capacity, and addressing the most opposite and 
even most antagonistic sectarian sentiments ; and though many 
men will hear with calmness and good nature, poUtical opinions 
the most adverse to those of their party, very few can Usten with- 
out indignation to any allegations against the principles of their 
churches. So much more tenderly do we cherish this delicate 
flower of the soul, Religion, than its rougher and hardier growths. 
And lastly, my distinct and settled opinions of the spheres of 
government and of the right of religions, as institutions, (though I 
may be wrong,) are that, in its essential nature, human govern- 
ment is a purely secular or worldly concern, and can have noth- 
ing whatsoever, to do with religion, unless it be to let it alone, 
and to compel every citizen or subject to leave undisturbed that 
of every other. And my notion of religion is, that in its essen- 
tial nature, it is so wholly spiritual, unworldly and sensitive to 
the rude touch of the }>alpable, tangible and gross materials 
and instrumentalities, of which governments are formed and 
with which they operate, as to be greatly shocked, if not wholly 
paralyzedj by any union or collision with them. 

I will say however, (what can justly give no offence to any one) 
that I had supposed that all parties believed, that the Christian 
Religion had this superiority over all its predecessors — that it 
was to be propagated throughout the world by giving the Gos- 
pel free course ; that it can make no difterence whether we car- 
ry the Gospel, or Gospel principles, to the Gentiles, or lead the 
Gentiles to them ; and, above all, that it was to be taught by its 
genuine apostles, by great meekness of spirit, by sweet mild- 
ness and persuasiveness of language and manner, and an ever 
active perseverance in good works and brotherly offices. And, 
whether this be the Christian method of self-propagation or not, 
this I do know, that in all other matters of conscience and of 
faith, it is the only system for success. Boldness and firmness 
in the defence of our principles especially, are noble mental and 
moral qualities. But denunciations, and epithets, and restraints 



and imddioiis comparisons, can never either convert or secure 
the faith of the understanding or affection from the heart, to 
any human doctrine. You may scourge and chain the body 
and its Hmbs into formal obedience to your will ; but, God be 
praised ! the subtler and nobler nature of man — the human 
soul, though you can frighten, and wound, aye, lacerate it by 
unkind and cruel speeches and deeds, yet can you never drive 
it to your purposes or faith, or chain it from its own. From 
the darkest and deepest dungeons ; between the thickest and 
hardest walls; under the sharpest and keenest scourgings; amid 
► the slowest yet hottest fires, though the poltroon tongue of agon- 
ized flesh may utter the lying word of renunciation, or the cow- 
ard hand of selfish craft may make the deceitful sign for pardon, 
none of these can reach or change the free thought within. 
Under them all, the soul and all its faculties are unchained, un- 
scourged, unburnt, unmoved and unalterable in her laith. And 
from them all she can soar, in the flash of an eye-lid, forward 
through all space, or backward through all time. 

To recur to our comparisons: — At that period, our foreign 
commerce exhibited an annual exportation of |7,161,534, and 
an annual importation of $8,907,372. Now; our exports exceed 
an average of $220,000,000 per year, and our imports an ave- 
rage of 1200,000,000. In one respect, this immense increase 
of industrial products only exemplifies the former facts, from 
another point of view. But it will be seen that the increase of 
our trade is much greater, than in the ratio of our increase of 
population. Consequently; it also contains, within itself, an 
entirely additional and independent benefit, arising from our 
new institutions. 

Then ; we manufactured scarcely anything. Oar productions 
were almost wholly agricultural, or from the fisheries and forests. 
Now; there is scarcely a fabric, or tool, or machine, too costly 
or complicated, too delicate or massive, in all the arts, for our 
ingenuity and enterprise not boldly to undertake and nobly to 
accomplish. 



[8] 

Then ; our roads were the rudest and most natural highways, 
which a civilized people could use or endure. Now; as a nation, 
by the energy of the General Government, or of States, and 
through the enteiprise of private corporations, it is no boast to 
say, that we have expended such vast sums of money in the 
completion of such great and so many turnpikes, canals, rail- 
roads, bridges, tunnels, harbors, lighthouses, public edifices and 
other works of internal improvement, that no nation, except 
England, and perhaps Rome, ever excelled them in numbers, 
beauty, or strength. 

To pass, however, from the domain of physical results, (of 
which these remarks are scarcely full enough for an index to 
the volumes which I might say,) let us now, with Hke brevity 
and generalization, merely glance at specimens of our achieve- 
ments in the higher spheres of mental, moral, social and of le- 
gal rights and results. For, be it distinctly understood, that all 
these departments of human life are wonderfully stimulated to 
development and consequent action, by national independence 
and even national pride. Few of you can have imagined, 
(unless you have had opportunities to have observed,) how a 
provincial and colonial state of dependency and uncertainty, 
humiliates the courage and overshadows the hopes of all its 
individuals, even in their personal improvement or private 
enterprises. 

As inventors, for example, what was the character of our 
then population ? It is scarcely credible, but notwithstanding 
the present seeming of our national character, that we take to 
invention and discoveries, as naturally as "ducks to water," and 
notwithstanding the fact that the exigences of a residence in a wild 
country should seem to have instantly started these capacities to 
work, you will look in vain for inventions, either of sufficient num- 
ber or merit, to indicate that there was the germ of a nation of 
whittlers, carvers, turners, sawmakers, filemakers, and makers, 
in fine, of all instruments, machines and oddities, from apple- 



[9] 

tree combs and self-setting mouse-traps, up to wooden bacon 
lirims, and steam mountain-borers ! With a few and most obscure 
exceptions, our colonies were alike destitute of inventors and 
inventions. 

No sooner, however, had the colonial chrysaHs — 

— " Cabin' d, cribli'd, confined, bound in 
To saucy doubts and fears,'''' — 

broke from its close and husky shell, and breathed the 
outer life of free air, and basked itself in freedom's sunshine, 
than did those faculties spread their strong and glowing wings 
for their various and high careerings. And we now find a 
Franklin, with his lightning-rod, like another shield of Ajax, 
defying and turning harmlessly aside the swift and fiery thun- 
derbolt; a Fitch, and Fulton, and Ilumsey, (strangely enough, of 
all the world,) the three first, and independently of each other, 
the original inventors of the steamboat — an instrument of com- 
merce and civilization which has doubtless advanced the world, 
by a century of progress and imjirovement in those depart- 
ments ; a Whitney, whose cotton-gin has not merely, as it 
is said, "been worth hundreds of millions of dollars to his 
country," but has done infinitely more ; it has supplied cheap 
clothing to hundreds of millions of the poor, naked and cold 
inhabitants of every country and clime of the World ; a Morse, 
whose magic wire, quivering Avith its electric energies, with the 
speed of hghtning, and the docility of the human breath and 
tongue ;-=^— across the continents, spanning its valleys and wading 
its rivers; diving under its lakes and seas; climbing or perforating 
its mountains ; girdling the round globe, indeed far faster than 
she can spin upon her axle ; — pulsates the thriUing messages of 
love to the trembhng maiden, or the wail of her doom to an 
assembled nation. 

Why, what a countless host of inventors and inventions, 
useful and ingenious — greatly, grandly useful, and quaintly 
ingenious — in all the arts of life, and in all the sciences, whether 



[10] 

of philosophy or of conceits, have we not devoted to mankind 

since we became a nation ? 

In literature, the colonies had indeed produced Edwards and 
Dwight, great names in theology; and Barlow and Hopkins, 
very small names in poetry ; and these were all. Whilst, since 
that period, the United States have given to all, and to more 
than all, who shall ever speak or read the English tongue, a 
Washington, Franklin, Hamilton, Marshall, and Jefferson; a 
Brockden Brown, Cooper, Irving, Paulding, Bancroft, and Pres- 
cott ; a Halleck, Longfellow, and Bryant. 

In the fine arts, the colonies claimed Benjamin West, whom 
Byron described, with very great bitterness and exaggeration, 
and with little taste and truth, as ^^Europe's worst dauber, and 
poor England's lest;'' and Copley, whose best work was certainly 
his great son, the Lord Chancellor Lyndhurst. 

Since then, we have produced, amongst many others, in the 
art of miniature painting — Mallone, Hite, Wood, Officer, Dodge, 
Watkins, and Miller ; in that of portraiture — Gilbert Stuart, 
Jarvis, Sully, Jewett, Inman, Page, Ingham, Baker, Elliot, Kyle, 
Buchanan Head, Soule, and Eaton; in historical painting — ■ 
Alston, Trumbull, the Peales, Yauderlyn, Chapman, Rossiter, 
Huntington, Leutze, Beard, and Powell; in landscape paint- 
ing — Cole, Doughty, Durand, Fisher, Cropsey, Church, Kensett, 
Frankenstein, Sontagg, and Whittridge ; and in statuary and 
sculpture — Greenough, Crawford, Brackett, Brown, Clevinger, 
and, (above them all, the pride of his country, the admiration of 
Europe,) our own great Hiram Powers. 

It is not too much to say, of any or all of these, that they 
are quite equal to their cotemporaneous classes of any country; 
and, in some of these branches of art, they will compare, most 
favorably, with the artists of the classic and palmy days of art. 

In statesmanship and oratory, the Colonies had in the egg 
shell, or in the callow and downy state of subject life, Samuel 
and John Adams and Fisher Ames of Massachusetts ; Beuja- 



[11] . 

min Frankliu of Pensylvania ; Patrick Henry and Thomas Jef- 
ferson of Virginia — but it was for the Revolution and for Na- 
tional Independence, to hatch and plume these and many more 
their equals, like young eagles, strengthened by the vital morn- 
ing, for their swift and high flight, before the upturned face of the 
Earth, and into the open and blazing eye of the sun ! The 
United States have had not only these, but Washington, Ham- 
ilton, Madison, Jay and King ; John Quincy Adams, Calhoun, 
Webster, and our own "Great Western, Henry Clay" — names 
which, whether considered by the endowments of genius or the 
culture of education ; whether estimated by the standard of 
moral worth or mental power, will survive as long as fame 
shall descend by tradition, or as their works can be set and stand 
fixed in type. With the best and the greatest of the world's 
noblest times and places let them stand, for perpetual compar- 
isons. They, too, have passed up into history. 

In war, the Colonies divided, were without heroes. They 
were defended as they were watched, by a foreign and hireling 
soldiery. But the United States have had Hhe foremost man of 
all this tvorUV — General George Washington. And after him, 
in the Revolutionary armies, but with a long interval truly, the 
Lees, and Green, and Gates, and Morgan, and Wayne, and Al- 
len, and Paul Jones, and Lafayette. We cannot on this day at 
least, forget Lafayette or France, to whom we and our children 
to the latest posterity, owe so very much. 

In our subsequent wars and battles, we likewise commend to 
the historians of mankind, Jackson and Perry and Decatur and 
Stewart and Brown and Gaines and Taylor and Winfield Scott. 
If the world in her greenest and palmiest ages, in tent or fiekl^ 
in cabin or on deck, on land or sea, in the battle or before the 
breeze, can show wiser heads in council, steadier hands at helm, 
or braver hearts in fight than these, then has history forgotten or 
failed to make true record of them. Let Bunker Hill, Trenton, 
Monmouth, Germantown, Ticonderoga, the Cowpens and York- 



• [121 

town — let Chippawa, Lundy's Lane and New Orleans — let Palo 
Alto, Monterey, Buena Vista, Vera Cruz, Cerro Gordo, Cbapul- 
tepec, Molino del Rey and Mexico, attest the civic wisdom and 
the warlike valor of our generals and their troops. And these 
are all the fruits, ripe and gathered for present enjoyment or 
for future seed, of our Revolution. They at least, are passed 
and recorded and sealed. History is safe as to them ! 

I omit all allusion to our systems of Education, not only be- 
cause there is not time to particularize further on these topics, 
but because, although far in advance of England in the matter 
of free schools, we cannot boast ourselves in respect of educa- 
tion over other countries of Europe. Education is by no means 
what it might be, and with our advantages, what it ought to be 
in our country. 

But there is a fountain from which all these qualities and char- 
acteristics and events must flow. What loere and are the re- 
spective privileges and duties of the Colonial and independent 
Americans ? To say that those were under a monarchy and these 
are in a repubhc, does not truly and fully set forth the whole 
answer. In this case names are not things ; for there may be 
more personal freedom, and consequent individual and national 
prosperity and developement, under a monarchy, so called, than 
in a nominal repubhc. What in fact is the truth, in our in- 
stance ? Let us look into the public laws of these respective 
periods for our answer. 

The colonies, in the first place, were a sort of wards in Chan- 
cery, to the parent government. They were minors, whose proper- 
ty and rights of property were under guardianship. Navigation 
laws prohibited colonial ships to court God's free breeze, and to 
plough God's open ocean, without a license from his anointed 
Vicegerent. Any British subject could freely choose his own 
pursuit and follow whatsoever channel of trade, his enterprise and 
whim might select, provided only, he was born and dwelt in the 
southern part of the Isle of Albion. But, if he were a North 



[13] 

American Colonist, an Irishman or Scotchman, he could only 
manufacture, export, or import, such commodities and navigate in 
such bottoms and in such directions, as might not compete with 
the interests of the elder brothers in these trades, at home. For 
centuries it had been the inherent right of EngUshmen not to 
be taxed without representation, not indeed, except by their own 
representatives alone. It was discovered that the American 
colonists were not British subjects in this sense. They could not 
only be taxed without their consent and against their expressed 
will, but for purposes not before known to the English laws, for 
purposes special and peculiar, though not beneficial to them ; 
and not merely to support large standing armies in time of 
peace, but to support armies, not for defence against their com- 
mon enemies, but to subject and enslave themselves. 

Your time and patience would fail me indeed, if I were to 
enumerate by the most general classifications, all the restraints 
and inequalities which distinguished the condition of the colo- 
nists and their brethren, British subjects, at home. But, we may 
be told, such mmt he the natural condition of colonists, as of all 
wards and minors. It was their own choice, that they immigra- 
ted hither, or were born here. Very well ! Let us look then, 
into that better condition, to which they might have aspired, by 
having returned to England or by having gradually attained 
such maturity of civil manhood, as might have justified the 
transplantation of the fullest and freest rights and privileges of 
British subjects, to this, the other side of the Atlantic. What 
were the constitutional and legal rights of British subjects at 
home, before and on the Wi of July^ 177G ? 

I shall only ask your attention now to two of the many divi- 
sions which might be made of this question, vis: to the restraints 
upon the natural rights of man, in his relation to the outward 
world, to society and government, and upon his religious liberties. 
And let us see what regard the British laws then actually paid 
to a man's right to live; to go where and when he pleased ; to 



[14] 

think what he pleased, and to say and do what he thought ; and 
to worship whatever God or Gods he pleased, at his own times 
and places, and in his own Avay. 

We are very formally and solemnly, and as a great proof of 
the Hberality and freedom of the Constitution of England, in- 
formed by its ablest expounder. Sir WilHam Blackstone, that 
the language of the great charter is, "that no freeman shall be 
taken or imprisoned, but by the lawful judgment of his equals, 
or by the laws of the land" — 1 Blaclcstone^s com. 135. This immu- 
nity of Magna Charta would be, theoretically, something better, 
if every freeman could have had some infinitesimally small voice 
in making these laws of the land. His natural right to do this, 
depended at the time of our Revolution, upon his being the owner 
of a freehold estate, in the county, of some £20 or $100, annual 
income, clear of all taxes. Nevertheless, these "laws of the land," 
which could so constitutionally restrain a man's natural liberties, 
may have been very good, although but few of the freemen had 
any voice in their enactment. Let us consider a small number of 
them, as specimens of the whole. 

The State neither directly, nor indirectly, made the slightest 
provision for the education of the subject. Let us see how the Brit- 
ish laws for ages after the Magna Charta treated ignorance, 
which by this and by other means, they themselves produced. 

Until 1707, if two persons should have been guilty of the 
same theft — of a pocket handkerchief, for instance — the one 
who could not read, was put to death, by hanging, and the other, 
who could read, (and ought therefore to have known so much 
the better not to have stolen it,) was released, with a nominal 
or no punishment. This privilege of priests and afterwards of 
scholars, or such as could read, was called t\\e"Bene/il of Clergy .''' 
The privilege in favor of scholars was never repealed until the 
reign of Queen Ann. 

But long after the repeal of this absurd and pedantic test of 
reading, as a question of hfe and death, and long after our In- 



[15 1 

dependence, "all clerks in order, were without any branding and 
without any transportation, fine or whipping, immediately 
discharged" for hundreds and hundreds of dilferent crimes as high 
up and heinous as aiding and abetting in murder ; and this, says 
the law, "as often as they shall oftend." Again ; "all lords of 
Parliament, and peers of the Realm, having places and voices 
in Parliament, (which is likewise held to extend to peeresses,) 
were discharged, without any burning in the hand, or imprison- 
ment, or other punishment in its stead, for the same crimes and 
in the same manner as real clerks convict ; but this is only for 
the first offence." But "a// the commoners of the realm," former- 
ly it had been, only those who could read, — "whether male or 
female, were, for the first offence of any one of these same 
crimes, burnt in the hand, or whipped, or fined, or sent to jail, 
or to the penitentiary, or transported for seven years, as the of- 
fence and disposition of the Judge might be." — 4 Blacks.^ com. 
373, 374, 370. 371. For the secaad offence, the laymen 
were hanged. And actually the Duchess of Kingston, who was 
convicted of the crime of bigamy, was so discharged, free from 
all punishment whatever, on the 22d of April, 177G, only sev- 
enty-two days before our declaration of Independence, by the 
unanimous voice of all the judges in Parliament.-^45 London 
Magazine, pp. 218, 389. If she had been an ^^even Christian^^ 
she would at that time have been sent to the penitentiary or 
transported to Botany Bay. A few years before, if she had 
been a commoner and also unable to read, she would have been 
put to death. So much for the miserable fictions of which the 
the English laws were stuck full, working the greatest injustice 
and hardship hehveen the different classes of the subjects. 

Let us look for a moment, now, into their humanity, and 
their due proportion to the offences committed, when they were 
not of those offences called " clergyable." By the Statute of 
9 Geo. I, c. xxii — "To hunt, wound, or steal any deer; to rob a 
warren," (of one blind young rabbit, for example ;) " or to steal 



[16] 

fish from a river or pond, or by gift or promise of reward to 
procure any person to join them in such unlawful act, ah these 
are felonies without the benefit of clergy," (4 Bl. Com. p^ 
295,) and subjected the ofi'ender to death. But in the year of 
Grace, (4 Geo. IV, c. liv,) i. e., in the precious year of our Lord, 
1823, clergy was restored to those awful crimes; and for steal- 
ing a jack salmon, no longer than your little finger, the British 
law no longer hanged a man, but only sent him to the peniten- 
tiary, or transported him for seven years for the first offence. 

The Statute of James, c. x.ri, allowed women who were con- 
victed of simple larcenies under the value of ten shillings, to 
be publicly whipped, set in the stocks, or imprisoned. And 
this law, for whipping women, was not repealed until 1 Geo. IV, 
c xlvii, in 182G. 

" The punishment of stealing anything over the value of 
twelve pence is, at common law," (and was for years after 
the Declaration of Independence,) "regularly death; which, 
considering the great intermediate alterations in the price of 
money, is," says Blackstone, "a very rigorous constitution, and 
made Sir Henry Spelman complain, that while every tiling was 
risen in its nominal value and become dearer, the life of man 
had continually grown cheaper." (4 Bl. Com. p. 239.) 

The benefit of clergy was extended to a simple larceny, for 
the first offence ; but for horse-stealing, or aiding in stealing a 
horse, or concealing him after the theft ; for taking woolen cloth 
of any value off the tenters; or linens, fustians, calicoes, or other 
goods from the place of manufacture, which extends, in the last 
case, to all aiders, assisters, procurers, buyers, and receivers ; . 
for feloniously driving away, or otherwise stealing one or more 
sheep or other cattle, or killing them with intent to steal the 
whole or any part of the carcass, or aiding or assisting therein ; 
for thefts on navigable rivers, above the value of forty shillings ; ' 
for steahng a letter from the post ; for stealing deer, fi.-h, hares, 
and conies, (4 BtacJistoncs Commentaries, page 240,) were all 



[17] 

punished by the law and in fact, as well as in countless other 
similar and equally frivolous offences. 

The laws in relation to insolvent debtors were almost as cruel 
and unnatural, though not so sanguinary. They were often 
legally subjected to the keenest indignities and sufferings of 
the body and mind, from the merest malice of their disa}> 
pointed and enraged creditors ; and many thousands of them 
have lived and died in prison for petty debts. 

Let us now briefly see how they estimated human rights, 
when considered with reference to the king and his church. 

" Natural allegiance is due from all men born within the 
king's dominions, immedlatdjj upon their birth," says the great 
commentator on British law. So early, in the subject's life, 
begins the encroachment on his natural liberties ! " Natural 
allegiance," he adds, " is, fhcrefore, a debt of gratitude ; which 
cannot be forfeited, cancelled, or altered, by any change of 
time, place, or circumsfcmce, nor by anything but the united 
concurrence of the legislature. An Englishman who removes 
to France or to China, owes the same allegiance to the king of 
England there as at home, and twenty years hence as now. 
For it is a principle of universal law, that the natural born sub^ 
ject of one prince cannot, by any act of his own — no, not by 
swearing allegiance to another — put off or discharge his 
allegiance to the former." (1 Bl Com. p. 370.) So great is 
the debt of gratitude due to the king of England, for his grace 
in permitting the infant-subject to be born within his realm ! 
Such being the strength and length of the tie by which he is 
bound to the king, it may be well enough to learn with what 
tenderness the king repays this gratitude. 

All the world knows the unimaginable horrors of the punishment 
of high treason under British law. In brief, and not to disgust you 
with minor particulars, it is, first, to draw the oflender to the gallows 
on a hurdle; second, to hang him by the neck, and then cut him 
down alive ; third, to take out his entrails, and burn them, while 



[18] 

he is yet alive ; fourth, to cut off his head ; fifth, to divide his 
body into four parts ; sixth, to place his head and quarters at the 
king's disposal. This was the law of punishment for males, in 
cases of high treason, until the year 1814. Women, for all kinds 
of treason, (as well against their husbands as against the king,) 
were drawn and burnt alive. (4 Id. p. 92-3.) 

Of what elements, (can you guess?) did this crime consist, for 
which a more than demoniac malignity could have invented a 
penalty so terrible ? We have these specifications of what con- 
stitutes high treason : First, " To compass or imagine the death 
of our lord the king, of our lady his queen, or of their eldest 
son and heir." Under this head, one British freeman was exe- 
cuted, as above described, for saying that he would make his 
son heir of the Crown, being the sign of the house in which he 
lived; the other, a gentleman whose favorite buck the king 
killed in hunting, whereupon he wished it, " horns and all, in 
the king's belly." But we are gravely informed, that, after 
they were executed, " these were considered hard cases." 

The second species of treason is, to "violate the king's com- 
panion, or eldest daughter unmarried, or the wife of the king's 
eldest son and heir — even with her full consent." 

The third species of treason is, " to levy war against our lord 
the king, in his realm." 

The fourth is, "to adhere to the king's enemies in his realm, 
giving to them aid and comfort in the realm, or elsewhere." 

Fifth. " If a man counterfeit the king's great or privy seal, it 
is treason." 

Sixth. " If a man counterfeit the king's money; or bring fdse 
money into the realm, knowing the money to be false, to mer- 
chandize and make payment with all." 

Seventh. " The last species of treason is, if a man slay the 
king's chancellor, treasurer, or the justices of the one bench, or 
the other, justices in eyre, or justices of assize, and all other 
justices assigned to hear and determine, being in their places 



[19] 

doing their offices." (4 Id. pages 77-85.) Still other kinds of 
treason have since been declared by statute ; which it is not 
necessary to note. So much for the inhumanity of the laws to 
enforce this natural allegiance to the king. 

Let us now ascertain what regard these laws paid to man's 
natural right to worship God. Is it possible that I was wrong 
in supposing, that, in the nature of things, human govern- 
ments have nothing whatever to do with religion ? That the 
institution of human government is, in its essence, secular and 
temporal— not spiritual, or having reference to eternity? That 
religion must be an affair of each soul, and between each indi- 
vidual soul, and its God? That any enforced obedience or 
conformity to God's law, is, in His eyes, no obedience or con- 
formity at all ? And, finally, that any exertion, by a State or 
any other extrinsic power, in favor of religion or the church, is 
not merely an unauthorised and illegitimate invasion of the 
rights of the individual man, who is put under restraint or pun- 
ishment, but is a desecration of the religious principle, and a 
great injury really committed to the church itself, as an insti- 
tution of Religion 1 All these are, I repeat, my opinions, 
whether they be the true theory of government and church, or 
not. And without pausing now to attempt, by discussion, to 
establish them, I shall proceed, in their light, to examine the 
state of the British la\v on these subjects, at the period of our 
Revolution. 

It is unnecessary to speak at large of their enactments, 
which punish apostacy and heresy, although they violate these 
principles, by imprisonment, for denying the truth of the Holy 
Scriptures in the one case, and in the other for "teaching 
erroneous opinions, contrary to the faith and blessed determina- 
tion of the Holy Church." As an instance of the utter self- 
ishness and tyranny of this whole system, a denial of the 
existence of God, and of the truth of the Holy Scriptures, was 
punished only by imprisonment for three years ; whilst at the 



[20] 

same time the teaching of erroneous opinions, against the faith 
as determined by the Holy Church, of St, Henry VIH, (who 
was at once its founder and its head,) was punished by the 
heretic's being hurnt alive! The virtuous and pious Queen 
Bess, burnt the last two Ana-Baptists, and James the First, the 
last pair of Unitarians. This penalty of burning heretics was 
repealed by Stat 29, Car. II, c. ix ; which, according to Black- 
stone, delivered the British " minds from the tyranny of super- 
stitious bigotry, by demolishing the last badge of persecution 
in the Enghsh law." (4 Id. p. 48.) I proceed to demonstrate 
how well-founded this boast was. 

This repeal took place in the year 1689. For one hundred 
years after that date, (perhaps now,) a law which was then on 
the Statute Book, (1 Elk. c. it,) punished " any minister who 
should speak in derogation of the Book of Common Prayer ; 
and any person whatsoever who shall, in plays, songs, or other 
open ivords, speak anything in derogation, depraving, or des- 
pising of the said book, or shall forcibly prevent the reading 
of it, or cause any other service to he iised in its stead, to be 
fined most heavily for the first offence ; doubly for the second ; 
and for the third, shall forfeit all his goods and chattels, and 
suffer imprisonment for life.'" These offences were called — 
"reviling the ordinances of the church."" (4 Id. 51.) Similar^ 
but milder laws were enacted against non-conformity to the wor- 
ship of the church. And all these were in full vogue, when 
that author wrote, and our Declaration of Independence was 
made. But I must pass to other instances of bigoted intoler- 
ance and persecution by British law. 

The Corporation Act forbids any one from being legally 
elected to any office relating to the government of any city or 
corporation, unless, within a twelvemonth before, he has re- 
ceived the sacrament of the Lord's supper, according to the 
rites of the Church of England, and at the same time to take 
the oath of supremacy and allegiance." And the Test Act, 



[21] 

directs all officers, and the military, to take the oath, and raak^ 
the declaration against transubstantiation, in any of the King's 
Courts of Westminster, or at the Quarter Sessions, within six 
calendar months after their admission ; and also within the same 
time, to receive the sacrament of the Lord's supper, according 
to the usage of the Church of England, and to deliver unto 
Court a certificate thereof, signed by the minister and church- 
warden, and also to prove the same by two credible witnesses, 
upon forfeiture of 500 pounds, and disability to hold said office. 
(4 Id. 58-9.) Of the same nature i& 7 Jac. I, c. ii, which per- 
mits no " person to be naturalized or restored in blood, but such 
as undergo a like test." Is not this a mockery of religious 
faith and of holy sacraments — a reward upon hypocrisy, and a 
heartless, faithless conformity, and a most horrible and (Truel 
invasion of the consciences of those who are made to take them, 
and of the rights of those who refuse them ? And yet the 
same author, who congratulates the British public that the "last 
badge of persecution in the English law had been demolished," 
announces these acts to be "two bulwarks erected, the better to 
secure the established church against perils from non-conformists 
of all denominations — infidels, turks, jews, heretics, papists, 
and sectaries.'''' 

Against Protestant Dissenters, a great number of severe dis- 
abilities and penalties had also been enacted and were in force, 
(though occasionally and upon most unconscionable conditions, 
suspended.) Amongst the conditions, upon which these severe 
penalties were removed, were the regular repairing, by Dissent- 
ers, to some congregation, certified to in the court of the Bishop 
or Archdeacon. And Dissenting teachers must subscribe certain 
articles of religion, specified in 13 Miz. c xii, or else by 17 
Car. II, c. ii, they were both fined and imprisoned for teaching 
school. Another specimen of such toleration is, that " no mayor 
or principal magistrate must appear at any dissenting meeting 
with the ensigns of his office, on pain of disability to hold that 
or any other office." (4 Id. p. 53-4.) 



[22] 

But harsh as are all these violations of the genuine and essen- 
tial principles of Rehgious Liberty, the natural right of every 
human soul, their ingenious severity is far exceeded in the 
legislation against Papacy. " Persons professing the popish re- 
ligion, besides the former penalties, for not frequenting their 
parish church, are disabled from taking their lands either by 
descent or purchase, after eighteen years of age, until they re- 
nounce their errors ; nor can they keep or teach any school 
under pain of perpetual imprisonment ; and if they willingly 
saij or hear mass, they forfeit, the one, two hundred, the other, 
one hundred marks, and each shall sufler one year's imprison- 
ment." (4 Ih. 53.) 

These are but the tythe of like disabilities and penalties. 
And we are told by the same author, that "where these errors 
are also aggravated by apostacy or perversion ; where a person 
is reconciled to the See of Home, or procures others to be 
reconciled, the offence amountsto high treason," (4/fZ. 50.) In 
brief; for not clearly understanding the difference between 
2^ra??substantiation, (which the Ptomish hierarchy taught,) and 
cowsubstantiation, (which I think, the British hierarchy then 
taught,) a doctrine which no impudence of pretext can dis- 
tort into any danger to any government or temporal institution; 
— a "British freeman" was disinherited of all his father's or his 
own property, and imprisoned for life. 

Heaven forgive our stupidity ! To this day, if I were to be 
hung and quartered for it, I cannot understand, — can any of you ? 
the difference between transubstantiation, which represented 
the bread and wine to be in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, 
transubstantiated into the body and blood of Christ, and the 
''consubstantiation" of Luther, or "the existence of the real, 
though not hodily presence of the hody of Christ in the sacra- 
ment," as Calvin taught. And so, also, because a '^'British free- 
man" were perverse enough to become reconciled to the See 
of Rome, or to prefer it to the See of Canterbery or of York, 



[23] 

preferring, in his conscience, it may be, the red silk stockings 
of John Wiseman, (Cardinal,) to the black plush hose of John 
Bird Sumner, (Lord primate,) ; or because he honestly believed 
that the divine and exclusive right of ordaining preachers, to 
declare the gospel of salvation to men, by laying of hands on 
the backs of their heads, descended from St. Peter, by apostolic 
succession, through the elder electric chain of Roman, and 
not through the later of London Bishops — he was to be dragged 
over the rough stones of long streets to the gallows, to be hung 
and taken dov/n alive, to be disemboweled, and to see his bow- 
els burned by the common hangman ; and to be quartered, and 
Jiis quarters and head, (for its stupidity, perhaps,) presented as rel- 
iques to his most sacred Majesty, St. Charles II. or perhaps St. 
George IV. the head of the Holy Church of the meek and 
lowly Jesus. 

I might give you a long list of the punishments due to pa- 
pish recusancy, or the crime of not attending the service of the 
Church of Eiigland. "These recusants are considered as persons 
excommunicated. They can hold no office or employment ; can 
keep no arms in their houses ; cannot come within ten miles of 
London; can bring no suit at law ; can not, without license, travel 
above five miles from their homes; can have no marriage, or burial, 
or baptism of their child by any other than by a minister of the 
Church of England ; if a married woman, she shall forfeit two 
thirds of her dower or jointure ; cannot be executrix or admin- 
istratrix to her husband, nor take any part of his goods ; and 
during the marriage she may be kept in prison, unless her hus- 
band redeems her at the rate of £10 or $50 per month, and 
the third part of his lands. And lastly ; as a feme-covert, may 
be imprisoned. So all others must, within three months after 
conviction, either submit and renounce their errors, or must ab- 
jure and renounce their native land ; and if they do not depart, 
or if they return without the King's hcense, they shall be guil- 
ty of felony, and suffer death as felons, without the benefit of 
clergy." [ild. p 57.) 



[24] 

" The remaining species or degree, viz : papish priests," — pur- 
sues our great commentator on British law and freedom, — "are 
in a still more dangerous condition. For, by statute 11 and 12, 
W. III. c, iv. (in 1700, or eleven years after his repeal of the 
last badge of persecution in the English law,) any papish 
priests or bishops celebrating mass, or exercising arnj part of 
their functions in England, except in the houses of ambassa- 
dors, are liable to perpetual imprisonment. And by the statute 
27 EUz. c. ii, not repealed by 29. Car. II, c. ix, any popish priest, 
born in the dominions of the crown of England, who shall come 
over Miller from beyond sea, (unless driven by stress of weather, 
and tarrying only a reasonable time,) or shall be in England 
three days without conforming and taking the oaths, is guilty of 
high treason ; and all persons harhoring him are guilty of felony, 
without benefit of clergy" — 4 Id.p.'bl. Of which laws the pres- 
ident Montesquieu, innocently remarks, that ''they are so rigor- 
ous, though not of the sangiimar>j kind"' — God preserve us all 
from that kind, then ! — "that they d'o all the hurt that can possi- 
bly be done, in cold blood." And all these laws were in full force 
long after the event which we now celebrate. It was against 
these laws, and such as these, that our forefathers rebelled. They 
were not even amended until 1791, or fifteen years after that 
event. 

SQch, then, my fellow countrymen, is a very limited and im- 
perfect, though f lir-minded statement, of the condition of the 
British laws, in reference to the rights of persons, on these sub- 
jects, at the time our fathers declared their independence of them. 
You observe, that I make no account of the horrid disorders, 
riots, conflagrations, assassinations and murders, by steel and by 
fire, which occurred under the raw-head and blood}'-bones excite- 
ments, from the peijured invention of a popish plot, by Titus 
Oates, in 1G78, and the many "no popery riots" which succeed- 
ed it. I have only spoken of the public laws and institutions of the 
Realm, They were the outbreaks of an insane and superstitious 



[25 1 

■furor of the people. AYe are, it seems, as likely to hive them now 
and here, as they were then and there. I am ashimed to siy, 
th it neither the principles of the New Testament, nor of the De- 
claration of Independence, seem to have rendered our people 
any more wise or hum me on such questions and occasions, than 
our fathers were, just two hundred years ago. The only new 
principles I know of, which cm cure this evil of persecution and 
riots b}^ mobs, is th it of one Napoleon Buonaparte, — to sweep the 
streets in their whole lengths and breadths, by cannon balls and 
canuister and grape shot. These are my ideas of religion, on the 
one hand, and government on the other.^ Humm life is a precious 
thing in my eyes and heart. And therefore it is, that I would 
save the best of it, and as much of it as possible, by preserving 
it from the daggers, and colts, and revolvers, and firebrands of 
a lawless, drunken, infuriate, fiendish mob, ravening for blood and 
bespattered with brains. Aye, let the artillery if need be, 
sweep your streets from the canal to the river, and back again, 
from the canal to the Vine Street Hill. Let it spare no race, 
no religion, no party, no officer, no rank, no man, who is tumult- 
uously engaged, under any pretext or cry, in the work of con- 
flagration and murder ! And, especially, let its most central, its 
most deadly aim be directed, point-blank and with the heaviest 
charges, against the demagogues of these riots — both pious and 
pohtical ! I am a man of peace, and not, alas ! much given to 
prayer ; but in such a case, how fervently could I supplicate the 
God of Armies for another " Rough and Ready," to whisper to 
another Captain Br<)gg, — "a little more grape, sir !" 

But, though I do not claim any improvement of the Ameri- 
can people, either in the matter of lawless mobs or of National 
wars, I do claim that in the great and general matter of human 
government, and especially with reference to natural human 
rights, — both in temporal and spiritual affdrs, that we have 
mide infinite and most glorious progress. And now, on this 
(umivcrsary of that day to which we owe all this, I submit to 
4 



[26] 

your calm determination, that first question which I pro- 
pounded to you : — Whether we have not gained greatly by 
that Declaration of Independence, and the victorious war which 
followed it ? 

I know very well what can and will be said in behalf of Eng- 
land ;• — that, bad as these laws were, they were yet as mild as 
any in Europe ; that many of them were rarely put in force ; 
that many of them have been since totally repealed, and all, 
which are unrepealed, have been humanized and ameliorated ; 
and that England now stands in the van of all nations, except 
our own, (her fair daughter,) battling in war, and laboring in peace, 
in the cause of personal human rights and national and popular 
independence. I know it all. With many indispensable, and a 
few voluntary, and therefore most disgraceful exceptions, her 
individual subjects can now proudly compare their own present 
legal and constitutional rights with ours, or those of any other 
peoples, past or present. I have performed but inefficient work 
here if my purpose, in this parallel, can be construed into an 
assault on the English institutions and the English people, as 
they are. Nor do I mean to be understood as disparaging the 
present Church of England, of which, I confess, I know but 
little. And least of all must I be understood, in anything 
which I have said, as intimating the slightest reflection upon 
that Church, which, in our country, uses most of its ritual and 
services, but which has no other connection with it. As my 
subject required, I have spoken of the laws of England in 
1776, as well concerning religious liberty as the Church of 
England, for which I have neither original nor inherited regard, 
without fear, favor or affection, whilst of the Episcopal Church 
of the United .States, for which I have both, I have neither said 
nor intimated anything whatever. 

I have indicated my estimate of the rank of England as a 
power. As a people — with all their institutions, good and bad, 
in my judgment and in my sympathies, but with a long inter- 



[27] 

val — England stands second to this, "my own, my native 
land." Defeat and shame attend her, in all her contests with 
us; victory and glory lead and crown her, whenever and 
wherever she may battle with any other power or people ! 
For — besides our kinship — being freer than they, she is better 
than them all. 

But 2uJi^ is it, that the British laws have been improved, 
since our independence ? It was solely because of our indepen- 
dence ! It was that impetus, which the Declaration and Revolu- 
tion of Freedom gave to the spirit of Freedom, through France, 
England, Germany, and the world, indeed; and more yet, by the 
proofs and examples which our earlier history showed, that liberty 
was not incompatible with order, — that tyranny and bigotry have 
been alike shamed into liberality and common sense. Let us 
claim, then, the present improved condition of England and the 
world, as the unquestioned fruits of our original Fourth of July; 
and that to mankind, as to us and our posterity, the results of 
that day have been most useful and glorious. 

There remains, then, but one question for us to solve. What 
will be the result — to Americans and mankind — of these prin- 
ciples ? It is not too much to say, that this solution depends 
wholly upon us of this generation. For this, indeed, seems to 
be the era of our national crisis. New doctrines and new prac- 
tices in the administration of our government, and the conduct 
of our people, have seized upon both, and spread like the con- 
tagion of leprosy over the entire body politic. Strange ideas, 
and old, worn-out ideas in rehgion, philosophy and govern- 
ment — revamped and polished up as novel — are embraced and 
hugged with all the dotage of senile paternity or maternity, 
(as it may be, that some beardless boy, or some old woman 
of either sex shall fancy himself or herself to have begotten 
or conceived them.) And they are written and gabbled about, 
as if the human intellect, with all its varieties of faculties, 
and all the power of each, was only created for the nurture 



[28-] 

and development of one pet idea. And as the world — like 
different groups of school-boys chasing their respective soap- 
bubbles, Iris-like and beautiful indeed, but only composed of 
thin air for their contents and a thinner film for their cover- 
ings — is divided into so many one-idead "isms," so each 
" Ism " has its society, open or secret, with its Constitution and 
By-laws, and President and Treasurer and Secretary, and Board 
of Directors ; or, if female, with the proper suffixes to indicate 
the sex, of the Presidentess and other officers. A baby has to 
be born, now, into the arms of a committee, and recorded by 
some Secretary with a corporate seal ; it is christened by a 
chartered company ; he is taught his A, B, Cs, by a Board of 
Trustees ; is married by the Head of a Congregation ; sympa- 
thises and distributes his charities through an Anti-Slavery 
Society, and a Relief Union ; is nursed in sickness by a succes- 
sion of lay sisters of one church or the other ; and has his eyes 
closed and is taken to his grave, in charge of an association of 
brothers, who are privileged to mourn, by ordinance, with a 
society-banner draped in blacker crape than his natural sisters 
can wear, and a society brass band, outwailing the natural sobs 
of mother and wife. But, as lefore his birth, not Societies, nor 
Chapters, nor Orders, nor Leagues, nor Sodalities — but Nature 
only — had anything to do with his earthly being ; so, may we 
trust, that, after his death and burial, he will arise from his sleep 
of centuries, and that he may be saved without the support 
or encouragement of any committee of them all ! If these 
cliques thus continue to take to themselves all our men and 
women, and all our boys and girls, into their legions of 
organizations, the time will soon come, when a simple, natural, 
self-relying, self-developed individual man, will be so great 
an exception and curiosity, that some Napoleon-Buonaparte- 
Barnum will kidnap and exhibit him for a show to the rest of 
mankind. 

Understand me ! These things in themselves, and in 



[29] 

moderation, are all well enough. But, whilst you are all and 
severally, cherishing unduly your favorite thought or pas- 
sion, and enslaving yourselves to this or the other "most 
important society," beware, lest you forget that you are a man 
and an American — a man by nature, and an American by birth 
or free choice. Remember, as a man, how many mental 
faculties, how many moral sentiments, make up your single 
being, all to be watched, developed, restrained and improved, 
in order to fulfil the precious trusts which nature, hke rough 
diamonds, bestowed upon you to be polished. And as an 
American, — a national. United States American, — oh ! do not 
forget how many privileges, and therefore how many various 
and arduous duties, you owe to the whole people, and to the 
General Government ! 

This is indeed a fearful crisis in the formation and preservation 
of a just public sentiment of national loyalty, by a people, whose 
sentiment is at once both law and destiny. Not merely are 
the individuals and populaces taking to themselves "other gods" 
for exclusive and fanatical worship, and forgetting their nation 
as a Whole Edifice, and their Union and Constitution as its 
material and cement, but organized States, through officers 
sworn first to fealty to that Union and Constitution, have pub- 
licly and deliberately forsaken their solemn trust. Of the three 
most patriotic and loyal States of the Revolution, two have 
ignominiously betrayed their posts. The Orator of History 
could once say, (and how nobly he did say it ?) of Massachu- 
setts — " There she is ; behold her, and judge for yourselves. 
There is her history ; the world knows it by heart. The past, 
at least, is secure." And the Orator of Prophecy did also say — 
"' Where American Liberty raised its first voice ; and where its 
youth was nurtured and sustained ; there it still lives, in the 
strength of its manhood and full of its original spirit; — \^ discord 
and disunion shall wound it — if party strife and blind ambition 
shall hawk at and tear it — if follv and madness shall succeed 



[30] 

to separate it from that Union, by which alone, its existence is 
made sure — it will stand, iu the end, by the side of that cradle, 
in which its infancy was rocked ; it will stretch forth its arm, 
with whatever of vigor it may still retain, over the friends who 
gather around it ; and it will fall at last, if fall it must, amidst 
the proudest monuments of its own glory, and on the very spot 
of its origin." 

Alas ! for that prophet and prophecy. The breath of life and 
light of inspiration have alike passed from his lips and eye. He 
sleeps unhonored — aye, dishonored — in the cold bosom of his 
beloved Massachusetts, which had taught him to love the Union 
more than herself, and which, by word and work, he had so 
much honored and glorified. And, alas ! alas ! ! for Massachu- 
setts. Like another Israel, she has gainsayed the law and 
the prophecy of her own Moses. She is recreant to her 
own grand history. She is Pithless to his sublime pro- 
phecy. The earliest and brightest Northern Star of the Revo- 
lutionary Constellation ; she that circled the first glorious orbit 
in our national sky, humming, as she whirled upon her own 
axis, and hymning, as she wheeled in her sublimer course of 
Federal duties, with that " music of the spheres," so still and 
silent to earthly ears, but so heavenly grand and sweet to the 
wide Universe, her Anthem-Harmony of — 



" LiBERTV a7id Union ; one and inseparable ; 

Now AND FOREVER." 



That Star has, madly and wildly, dashed from her glorious 
sphere, and plunged, darkling, dimmed and degraded, after her 
sister — the lost Pleiad of the South — down into the midnight- 
abyss of Nullification. 

What, then, my fellow-countrymen, — with such signs of the 
times, — shall be our national destiny? Clouds, dark and lurid, 
gather in all our sky, and, with their sombre shadows, checker 



[31] 

and blacken all our land. And, upon the far and future hori- 
zon, there rises, like the funeral pall of a nation, a yet deeper 
and blacker storm-cloud of pitchy smoke, threatening to over- 
whelm and bury us forever. I cannot pierce its murky gloom. 
But, beyond and around it, flickering faintly and dimly, but 
still fringing and illumining the edges of its dusky folds, the 
Eye of Faith and Hope sees, or trusts it sees, the day-spring 
of a calmer and brighter era, May Heaven speed its coming 
and its spread. 



H 



1 "7 



89 '1 



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N. MANCHESTER, 
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